Utilizing Technology for Rewards and Engagement Programs

The data from transactional data can help you identify the products and services that resonate most with your customers at a given time. However, that's not the complete picture.

FREMONT, CA: Each year, the hospitality business experiences a variety of peak and off-seasons. During busy seasons, such as travel booking season, you must communicate with clients and secure purchases. However, there will unavoidably be slower seasons with fewer opportunities.

Fortunately, these seasons do not have to cause a decline. Regardless of the season, all client contacts can foster long-term, profitable relationships thanks to the tech-savvy engagement tools you undoubtedly currently employ.

With an ever-increasing competitive landscape, more savvy consumers, and a pandemic to recover from, hospitality firms are fighting for market share fiercely. You can deftly cut through the marketing noise by leveraging the technology behind incentive and engagement programs.

This is how:

Accessible data for understanding consumer behavior.

Transactional data is crucial, and it enables you to track sales, improve your bottom-line accounting, and understand which items and services are most popular with your clients (and when). However, there is more to the story.

While transaction data informs you what people are purchasing, the technology underlying your rewards and engagement programs provides a wealth of information to help you comprehend why your consumers make these purchases. This can include monitoring when individuals utilize promotions to earn rewards and when they redeem points.

You may become a proactive force in off-season engagement by utilizing data to gain a broader perspective that identifies growing patterns and predicts future opportunities.

Personalized treatment

"Personalization" is a jargon that has, in many instances, lost its meaning. AI and machine learning can help your incentives and engagement system understand and reach each individual. Here is where you can gain an advantage. Data trails can provide tech-supported mapping and modeling that reveals how consumers interact with your brand, the frequency with which they interact with your firm, and which types of promotions and offers are most effective.

For example, 30 percent of all transactions have been attributed to individually designed suggestions. The beauty of the investment in automating this process is that it continues to learn and enhance personalized offerings over time.

Understanding purchasing reasons enables the curation of relevant, personalized offers and rewards that consumers are likely to utilize throughout the year, opening the lines of communication, establishing recurring touchpoint opportunities, and differentiating your business.

Creating more effective promotional structures

Customers' expectations regarding the sorts and quantities of rewards and incentives they get have increased in the past few years. A 1:1 customer experience with the right rewards and promotions at the right time and place is essential for driving customer loyalty and attracting new consumers. However, specific promotions and bargains are more effective than others.

Successful hospitality brands are increasingly transitioning to non-discount-led offers that create value, spending, and foot traffic instead of a price-driven strategy. This strategy is supported by research: reward-based promotions outperform quick discounts and can generate over 60 percent more revenue with an 8 percent higher return on the marketing budget.

Smart promotions, such as those offering better rewards (e.g., more loyalty or frequent flyer points) for more significant dollar spend, help firms increase sales volume and achieve important performance goals for brands and consumers (this is called the dynamic value exchange).